With the recent launch of the Creative Biz Fund, it is clear that South Africa’s creative economy is starting to be taken seriously. But the importance of this sector is starting to capture attention across the continent. “Discussions about Africa’s economic growth usually focus on high-cost, tech-heavy industries – be it around fintech regulations, biotech research facilities or software engineering tech centres,” says Kelly Maroon, CAPACITI Head of Talent. “Meanwhile, the creative industries are quietly booming in the background. This powerful sector has an unmatched ability to do what the tech giants are unlikely to do – provide millions of jobs for Africa’s rapidly growing youth population.”
She shares that the numbers tell an intriguing story. “Overall GDP growth across many African markets is typically sluggish, but the creative sector, including digital design, animation, gaming, film, UI/UX and fashion, is growing at a notable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8,2%. Equally encouraging is that Sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing a 23% explosion in video streaming demand, the highest growth rate globally, triggered by the active expansion of global giants like Netflix into the continent.”
But despite this momentum, Maroon states that the sector continues to be viewed as informal, high-risk or hobbyist, usually by traditional institutional investors, venture capitalists and policymakers. “It’s rare for the creative sector to be regarded as a primary macroeconomic driver. Rather, it’s seen as a kind of ‘add-on’ and its infinite potential is overlooked and misunderstood.
She suggests that to sustainably nurture and grow the creative industries across the continent, stakeholders must start by unpacking its unique architecture and the ‘low floor’ and ‘high ceiling’ potential inherent to this sector.
Leveraging the Low Floor
“Democratisation is at the heart of the continent’s creative economy,” Maroon says. “Unlike biotechnology or corporate fintech, which require institutional capital and advanced technical degrees before a single line of value is created, the creative sector possesses an exceptionally ‘low floor’ where barriers to entry are minimal.
“Armed with a smartphone, internet connectivity, and raw curiosity, a self-taught creator in Nairobi or Lagos can learn 3D-modelling or video editing via open-source tutorials and immediately compete on global platforms. This hyper-accessibility is exactly what preserves the continent’s profound cultural authenticity and unleashes its ancient storytelling heritage,” she emphasises.
However, Maroon warns against a risk that this industry is exposed to. “What we absolutely must avoid is the urge to ‘raise the floor’ by constructing bureaucratic, rigid academic credentials or formal barriers to entry that filter out the very natural talent that gives the African creative ecosystem its vibrant edge.”
Overcoming Fragmented Ecosystems
The booming creator economy might pose the opportunity to create jobs, but this does not automatically turn into results. Creators still need guidance to build sustainable businesses. “Just because the barriers to entry are low does not mean a creator is guaranteed a sustainable business. Within this critical missing link is where the opportunity lies to connect Africa’s creative trajectory to a high-growth ceiling.
“Fragmentation, defined by geographic isolation and linguistic silos, is a key characteristic of the creative economy. In West Africa, Nigeria’s Nollywood enjoys cinematic and sound dominance while Francophone Africa excels with highly specialised animation and sustainable fashion.
Maroon states that as long as these pockets of excellence operate in isolation, stakeholders fail to achieve the cross-sector consolidation required to build Africa-first, end-to-end production pipelines. She uses the following examples: A comic book writer in Abidjan struggles to connect with an animator in Dakar, who in turn lacks access to a sound engineer in Lagos or a UI/UX designer in Johannesburg.
“Africa’s creative talent today – for the most part – is a collection of brilliant individuals, rather than a collective industrial force capable of competing on a global scale. The need for a unified regional ecosystem that nurtures creative talent, fosters cross-pollination and facilitates scale economies is the foundation of a resilient creativity economy.”
The New Venture Mindset
She says that unlocking the high ceiling also calls for a re-engineering of the venture capital mindset. Traditional funding structures typically fail in the creative space because their success metrics are fundamentally mismatched.
“Venture capitalists often argue that the creative sector is too risky and difficult to regulate, largely because the subjective nature of creative output can be hard to quantify on a spreadsheet. This mindset is further exacerbated by the historical tension between artistic merit and commercial viability: a box office hit, or a viral mobile game, is rarely what art critics deem the best creative work. So whose merit are we measuring, anyway? Part of the solution lies in shifting the metrics, moving from a space where creative products are viewed as standalone pieces of art to evaluating them as commercial assets.
“To this end, entrepreneurial accelerators and specialised incubators must pivot to meet the real need. African creatives must be taught to build, secure and monetise Intellectual Property (IP). When a studio owns the IP rights to a character franchise, an animated world or a unique digital system, it possesses an asset that can be scaled, licensed, and replicated infinitely, functioning then in the same way as the asset mechanics of a fintech software platform do.”
Specialised Incubation
According to Maroon, it’s time for the continent’s creative economy to be treated as the high-growth vertical that it is. “Specialised incubation has an important role to play in achieving this goal. General tech business incubators are ill-equipped for this; they do not understand the mechanics of content pipelines, rendering infrastructure or global distribution rights. Africa needs dedicated creative-tech accelerators that combine high-end infrastructure (such as shared rendering farms and premium software licensing) with rigorous business literacy, IP law and contract negotiation.
“We don’t need to teach or promote creativity. We need to build the scaffolding that surrounds creativity – structured incubation, financial fluency and cross-border distribution networks. This scaffolding is our best defence against ensuring Africa’s creatives do not merely become outsourced, low-cost gig workers for international studios, but asset owners of the fastest-growing economic engine on the continent,” she concludes.
